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Toni Dove  – Artificial Changelins

Toni Dove is a female artist who works with technology to create interactive installations. She lives in New York City. While I couldn’t find information about her formal education, her work centers around interactive cinema and robotics. She is currently working on a retrospective installation.

Her project, Artificial Changelings, is a storytelling piece that follows a romance story set in 19th century Paris. The installation tracks the viewer’s physical location throughout the space, and the viewer can interact with the piece to change parts of the story via the character’s behaviors. I love this project because it sounds so advanced and futuristic, and it’s even more astounding when you realize that she worked on it 20 years ago! Not only is the technology and software impressive, but a lot of artistic thought was put into this as well, since the installation incorporates video. She also devised a very intuitive way of interacting with the exhibit, via stepping to/from four distinct spatial zones on the floor.

Here’s a video: